


Buddy Aurinko's Non-Alcoholic Lighthouse Bar

by ishouldwritethatdown



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Canon Asexual Character, Dancing, Developing Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Karaoke, Other, Platonic Relationships, Queerplatonic Relationships, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-03
Updated: 2020-06-03
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:16:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24404173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishouldwritethatdown/pseuds/ishouldwritethatdown
Summary: Seven years before the events of Tools of Rust, Jet Sikuliaq became a new man, and it didn't happen overnight but it did happen over reluctant karaoke with the help of a very enthusiastic Buddy Aurinko.
Relationships: Buddy Aurinko & Jet Sikuliaq
Kudos: 21





	Buddy Aurinko's Non-Alcoholic Lighthouse Bar

Buddy put care and attention into sweeping his hair out of his face. Jet had quite wiry hair, so it didn’t want to stay where she put it. Very inconsiderate of it to shade his eyes. “Now, darling,” she said, “let’s take it from the top.”

His eyes were wet and shadowed, but he took the glass of water that she gave to him and sipped. Just a little, and then he handed it back to her. She made a lifting motion with her free hand, chest pulled _up_ by a deep breath, and he copied, nodding. He knew the motions by now. In fact he’d probably known them since the first, with that memory of his. He just needed a little prompting.

When she decided enough of the shakiness had left his breaths, she handed him the glass of water again and he drank from it properly. They carried on like that, breathing and passing the glass back and forth, until it was empty.

She helped him to his feet, and he swayed a little. Big guy like him, it was a little concerning. But she was already concerned. She was already well past concerned. “Mm, let’s put that to music,” she said, making sure he was steady enough before she let go of his hand to go to the jukebox. Selected the first track – something slow, with a strong undertow of saxophone to keep you grounded in it.

She wouldn’t have called it dancing, not like the waltzes and the jives of the ballroom, but she did move to the rhythm. Jet didn’t join in – he never did, not like this or sober – but he did watch how she moved, and subconsciously he was moving to the beat as well, shifting his weight from foot to foot slightly.

She put her arm around his waist and made the steps as if she had claimed him as her dance partner. Fanned herself at the imagined flattery. He walked as normally as he was able, but he was, she was pleased to see, persuaded by her hands on his to twirl her under his arm before she left him at the threshold of the restroom. The shower head had been someone’s hasty addition sometime in the last owner’s time at the Lighthouse – maybe a concern about the accessibility of the upstairs bathroom, or a pair of residents who liked to shower at precisely the same time, but regardless, she was ever thankful for it. She doubted very much that she had the strength or co-ordination to get Jet up the stairs on her own.

“Two more songs on the jukebox,” she told him, and he acknowledged her with a nod before she closed the door.

She made another couple of moves that might have been dancing, just feeling the music for a moment more, until she let the adopted mask of calm slip away. She would not make a sound of it, but she ran her hands back past her hairline, bunching her hair behind her head as she exhaled at the racks of alcohol behind the bar. The lock was perfectly intact for the screen that covered it in the Lighthouse’s closed hours – he’d just cracked the combination. Seen her put it in when they opened up one morning, was most likely. Maybe not even on purpose. And then it had been _there_. Just one padlock away, and he’d been cracking locks and stealing quietly into places for longer than anything else. He had more than one bad habit to kick.

He told her afterwards that he had been at it for two weeks – thirteen days, to be exact. Buddy’s regular schedule had made it easy. She went up to the top of the Lighthouse to eat her dinner and feel sorry for herself, and he slipped some of the stock out of the bar. And felt sorry for himself.

She questioned for the thousandth time whether there wasn’t something she could be doing with the Lighthouse that wasn’t quite so potentially inebriating. The trouble was branding. She had put a lot of energy in the last year into making this ‘Buddy’s Lighthouse Bar’ and to suddenly change tack now would mean essentially starting from scratch. Even if she could convince some of her current patrons to continue conducting their business here, no one out here in the Cerberus Province wanted anything more than they wanted to drown their troubles in alcohol. It was how she had met Jet in the first place.

“I have outstayed my welcome here. I must go.”

They had been through this before. She needed to find a way to put a stop to this idea of his that he was a burden on her. “Nonsense. Who would sing Mars’ Greatest Hits with me on karaoke night.”

“I have never done that.”

“I can dream.”

“We do not have a karaoke night.”

She ignored this comment and let a subroutine further back in her mind start figuring out the logistics of the karaoke night she was about to introduce to the Lighthouse’s regular events. “I have a better idea,” she said, just coming up with it. “You become my bartender.”

He stared at her. “I have trouble recognising sarcasm.”

“I know. It wasn’t sarcasm.”

“That is a categorically terrible idea, Buddy.”

“You will never be expected to open or close the bar. You are only permitted to be behind the bar while patrons are on the premises. If you drink any of the stock, you will be fired. Without a full-time bartender I can trust, I will have to close the bar, I will have no income, no food on the table, I will become radioactive slime. Deal?”

He looked a little distressed, but he was following her; accountability, tangible consequences he could deter himself from. A feeling of earning his place in the Lighthouse that being ‘bouncer’ apparently wasn’t fulfilling. “Will I be expected to talk to patrons?” he asked practically.

“Just nod sympathetically when they pause their slurring, darling. They don’t even need to know your name.”

He considered it for a few more silent moments before he said, “Deal.” They shook on it.

//

Buddy tutted and shook her head. She leaned over the bar as the final riffs of the song rang out. “Jet. Darling. We simply have to show them how it’s done.”

“I do not sing.”

“The old Jet didn’t sing. The new Jet is still in the making.” She extended a hand.

When he took it, Buddy raised her free hand to dibs the next song, and there was an encouraging, banterous cheer as they approached the mini-bandstand where the jukebox-turned-karaoke-machine currently stood. Buddy flipped through the tracks and suggested several which Jet made no attempt to comment on – not that she actually expected him to.

“How about some classical music,” she suggested, making her selection, and took the microphones from the stand, handing one to Jet. Three ticks of the jukebox as the metaphorical needle threatened to stick counted her in:

_Tonight, I’m gonna have myself a feel good time, I feel ali~ve,_

Jet stood stoically in the middle of the stage with Buddy circling around him until he joined in with the chorus, _Don’t stop me now,_ and he sounded completely robotic and he was sort of glaring at her, but he was doing it.

As the song picked up, he started tapping his foot, and the way she was playing off his stone face was at least raising laughs from their spectators who only knew him as The Bartender.

_I'm a rocket ship on my way to Mars, On a collision course_

_I am a satellite, I'm out of control,_

She draped against him with her back to his chest, and he took her cue to take her hand and spin her out so she could do a dramatic flourish. _I’m an atom bomb, ready to oh, oh, oh –_ she shook her head, left-right-left – _explode!_ and she mimed the explosion with her hand coming away from her hair.

By the time they got to _Don’t stop me, Don’t stop me, Ooh ooh oooh,_ he actually looked like he might be enjoying himself.

When the guitar solo kicked in, Buddy hiked her boot up onto a stool and began to strum an air guitar, her hair going wild as she banged her head. There were several whoops from her patrons as she recovered her foot and disguised her dizzy near-stumble as a move towards the steps. She walked off the stage and began weaving between the tables, giving some people winks and smiles.

 _Two hundred degrees, that’s why they call me Mister Fahrenheit_ ,

She used one of the stools in front of the bar to step onto the top, and saw that Jet had left the mini-stage after her, stood at the foot of the steps looking nervous as she strutted across the bartop. Glasses were moved out of the way of her feet as she walked.

_Travelling at the speed of light,_

_I wanna make a supersonic man outta you_ , she pointed at Jet as his concern for her wellbeing overtook his awkwardness in performing and he crossed the floor in a few long, well-placed, almost rhythmic strides in order to get to her.

_Don’t stop me now,_

_I’m having such a good time,_

_I’m having a ball,_

With only a pump of her eyebrows and a grin as warning, she stepped into his hands, which came around her waist and lifted her gracefully to the floor with a 180˚ twirl coming out of the momentum. _(Don’t stop me now, If you wanna have a good time, Just gimme a call,)_ There were some cheers from the room that Jet didn’t seem to notice.

_Don’t stop me now!_

_Cause I’m having a good time,_

_Don’t stop me now,_

His expression was derisive, but he was still singing _(Yes, I’m having a good time,)._ On _I don’t want to stop at all_ , he read her signal and dipped her back, prompting applause from the entire bar. She grinned into the _la la la_ s as the music faded out.

He tipped the microphone over his shoulder and said in a low voice, “The new Jet doesn’t sing, either.”

She wasn’t fooled. There was a corner of his mouth that was trying very hard not to become a smile. “If you say so, darling,” she said. “Now, get back to work, dearest. You have a job to do.”


End file.
